A ludicrous charge and a poorer defence

A former judge of the Supreme Court of India recently published a critique of Indian society [1] in a leading Indian daily. Noble as his intentions may have been, this was couched in rather inelegant terms and did not exactly represent the work of an intellectual giant. A rebuttal [2], published in the Indian edition of the Wall Street Journal, was even less impressive.

Ø “First, when our people go to vote in elections, 90 per cent vote on the basis of caste or community, not the merits of the candidate. That is why Phoolan Devi, a known dacoit-cum-murderer, was elected to Parliament — because she belonged to a backward caste that had a large number of voters in that constituency.”

How does the good Judge know that they chose her on the basis of her caste? Perhaps they deeply considered all political issues, the various candidates on offer and decided to go with her. Or does he claim to read their minds? Or was it because he heard a couple of those who claimed to have voted for Ms. Devi say that they would have voted for her irrespective of her political beliefs and purely on the basis of her caste? But can we be sure that they actually did vote for her? Remember that India, like Germany, has a secret ballot in most indirect elections. And that they are being entirely straightforward now – perhaps they did vote for her political views, but wish now to disassociate themselves from those views.

Ø “Second, 90 per cent Indians believe in astrology, which is pure superstition and humbug. Even a little common sense tells us that the movements of stars and planets have nothing to do with our lives.”

Common sense is scarcely appropriate in discussions involving modern physics. And how can movements of large and shiny objects have nothing to do with our lives? They provoke thought (this is apparent) and exert a gravitational force on the entire universe (this is current scientific thinking, even if not necessarily apparent).

Ø “Yet, TV channels showing astrology have high TRP ratings.”

There might be a leap in logic here. Was this tested using a control group? Perhaps the high ratings are on account of the really attractive girls and boys who do the astrological readings? Or could it be the pleasing background music?

Ø “Such films, to my mind, serve no social purpose, but act instead like a drug or alcohol to send the viewer temporarily from his miserable existence to a beautiful world of tinsel.”

A philosopher has already suggested that there is little to choose between a king who dreams for twelve hours that he is a peasant, and a peasant who dreams for twelve hours that he is a king. That aside, does the good Judge truly take upon himself to deprecate beauty? What next, condemn art because one cannot sit on it, or eat it, or use it to shelter oneself from the rain?

Ø “At one time, India led the world in science and technology”

Now the good Judge allows outmoded patriotism to carry him away. What is India? Do we include Pakistan and Bangladesh and the State of Hyderabad? What about Afghanistan? What does “led the world” mean? The number of patents, the number of Nobel Prizes in mathematics? What of times before then? A pathetic grasping at imagined glories of the past, then.

Ø “According to the report, Mr. Katju said that “the problem with some ‘educated Indians’ was that they still suffered from ‘colonial inferiority complex’” and therefore believe Indian writers are inferior to those who live in London or New York.”

Yes, well, this is one of the main issues that post-colonialism is concerned with.

Ø “During his speech there, he took it upon himself to criticize a wide range of subjects beloved of millions of Indians: from cricket to Sachin Tendulkar to film actor Dev Anand to activist Anna Hazare”

This is shameful. It is a free country, and the Judge is free to express his opinion. If called to speak, speak he ought to! The Wall Street Journal article appears to imply that one may not criticize things beloved of the masses.

Ø “We reached Mr. Katju, 65 years old, by phone Monday to ask whether his 90% estimate was derived from scientific thinking.”

Generally, it can only hearten one to see that the Press does not let an unattributed statistic in an article pass unchallenged. This schoolboy pettiness though, one could have dispensed. Especially when the Press, a few paragraphs earlier, also quotes a statistic without stating the provenance, “approximately 1.08 billion anonymous Indians”.

The general tone of the WSJ article is not very sophisticated and no great love of intellectual diversity and of freedom of expression shines through.

Ø “Such statements are nothing new for a justice who has made his name speaking his mind – over and over again – since taking over as the chairman of the Press Council of India”

Surely, we should applaud the Judge for speaking his mind, and not that of someone else. Or does the author of the WSJ article suggest that the chairman of the Press Council only be allowed to express his opinion once every couple of months?

[1] The 90%; http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-90/934145/0

[2] India, a Nation of More Than 1 Billion ‘Fools’ ; http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/04/09/india-a-nation-of-more-than-1-billion-fools/?mod=wsj_share_facebook

The onus of personal conviction and ethical implications thereof for punishment systems

Contemporary Western society is built upon respect for personal freedoms. The taking of human life, especially, is generally considered outside the reach of the state. However, even the most liberal and tolerant of societies do have armed police forces, militaries equipped with deadly weapons and incarceration establishments - and (almost) all states regularly kill and imprison humans. The use of deadly force against a human, as also illegal detention, is controlled by preventive customs and judicial retribution after the act.

Sartre, in one of his short stories (from the collection, "The Wall") describes a scene in a makeshift prison in wartime Spain. An official comes over to a room containing three prisoners and informs them that they are to be executed at dawn. One of them cries piteously and says that it cannot be true, it must be a mistake. The official checks his list, confirms the name of the young man, and asks, not unkindly, how can it not be true, it is, after all, on the list.

The official here is not evil, as most caricatures of evil men go. He is performing his duty, and according not just to the laws of his time, but also the ethics of ours. He assumes that his "list", typically typewritten, perhaps on official notepaper, and occasionally with the signature of another official, is the result of due diligence. But he cannot possibly know it, with any very high degree of conviction.

Wielders of keys and weapons tend not to be present in courtrooms, or even be aware of the checks and balances in the judicial process. The "convicted" may be a complete stranger, as might be the "victim". The case might be false in some aspects, or even entirely hypothetical. Without being privy to the details of the violation, the circumstances of those involved, and the reasoning offered by the lawyers and judges, the guard outside a prison door takes upon herself or himself a heavy ethical burden.

Now, one of the arguments against the warden or the executioner being too personally involved in their wards is that these professions, like many others in our society, call for specialization. Alternately, they demand non-specialization. It makes little economic sense to have an expensively-educated lawyer spend a winter's night outside of a prison cell, doing a crossword puzzle and listening to the captive sing of loved ones. The other argument holds that the executioner could not possibly kill someone if he or she knew more about the man or woman kneeling by the guillotine, more about what makes a person human, the story of a life, of schools attended and dreams followed. A similarly involved jailor might countenance the escape of a prisoner, except in systems where such collaboration is dealt with brutally.

Both of these arguments fail when we consider the high value put on human life, freedom and justice.

To restate the problem: jailors and assassination squads carry out their society-sanctioned duty of robbing humans of freedoms and life on the basis of externally provided information, which they are not expected to question or understand. It would appear that they prefer the terseness and coldness of a written transfer or execution order to the screams of a tortured person, one desperately claiming the right to live and breathe the outside air. Without believing in the veracity of their orders, or, expressed better, without having cause to believe in their veracity, the servants of the state carry out their dreadful tasks.

Without possessing a reasonable, uninterested, personal conviction of the legal guilt of the prisoner, the jailors and assassins place themselves open to the charge of enslavement and murder. The uniform and pieces of paper in duplicate cannot offer an ethical exoneration.

Till we find a way to enable a high degree of information parity across the length of our punishment systems, let us be more tolerant of those captors and killers who allow themselves to be kinder to their wards than their official handbooks stipulate.

The principle of the citizenry being considered innocent until proven guilty must, therefore, be extended to the legal guilt being proven anew to every new prison warden. Note that we are here only concerned with legal guilt, and not whether the laws themselves treat the human body and mind with respect. We assume they do. Indeed, they must, before this ethical problem can be tackled.

India: Examining Independence Day

Abstract: This essay challenges part of the traditional narrative that accompanies India’s Independence Day celebrations, in that it disputes that India was a country ruled by the British for a while, attaining freedom on a certain date, six decades ago.

The fifteenth of August is celebrated by the modern Indian Republic as Independence Day. Independence from British rule, that is, on August 15, 1947 CE. Now, the "Independence from British rule" bit is most commonly interpreted as the breaking of direct, formal British jurisdiction. However, the peninsula which one recognizes as India was not all of it under formal British rule. So, the whole of India did not become "free" on the 15th of August, 1947 for the simple reason that the so-called Princely States were already free [1]. One of them, Hyderabad State, did not become part of the Union of India till 1948 [2]. This was no tiny principality, but represented an area larger than England. Goa, on the Indian mainland, remained Portuguese territory till the war of 1961 [3]. Parts of Kashmir, claimed by India, have been occupied by Pakistan from 1947 onwards [4]. Pakistan and Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) themselves were, pre-1947, i.e. for the most time, part of what one traditionally called India.

CONCLUSION

August 15, 1947 can scarcely be celebrated as being India’s Day of Independence, given that it was accompanied by two massive chunks, almost a million square kilometers, breaking away (one going on to fight India in multiple wars), and that some other large chunks (Portuguese Goa and Hyderabad State) did not become part of the new Indian state, and that the so-called Princely States (covering a half-million km²) were free even before this date.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princely_states

[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,799076-1,00.html

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese-Indian_War

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir

When the brightest abuse

The Telegraph reported earlier this morning of charges against India's consul general in New York and his family of having treated their former maid "like a slave, paying her $300 a month, confiscating her passport and sexually harassing her".

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8593427/Indian-diplomat-treated-maid-like-a-slave.html)

How socio-political leanings and awareness change! At the age of fourteen or so, I would (probably) have automatically assumed that a honest, hard-working diplomat is being cozened out of his money by a scheming, vulgar domestic servant. Now, I find it altogether plausible that this bureaucrat has abused a defenseless, poor lady.

Irrespective of the facts of the case (i.e. of the so-called ultimate truth), it is unacceptable what his lawyer states:

"This fraudster of a woman, seeing dollar signs, has hit on a 'get rich quick' scheme after a year and a half of illegally staying and working in New York" -- attorney Ravi Batra.

Fraudster? And how do you know that? Because your client told you so? Given that the charge is that of slavery, and of contempt for human dignity, what does it matter whether she was illegally staying in the USA? Perhaps she was also illegally selling fake Ray-Bans in alleys? Perhaps also guilty of drinking alcohol in public in Texas. Perhaps also of Blasphemy. How is any of that relevant to this case?

The sooner Indian bureaucrats, and those of other developing countries as well as the rest of the powerful elite, realize that they are not beyond the reach of the law, the better it is for us all. Not just a large army, nuclear weapons or astounding GDP growth, but also human rights, equality before law, due process and the dignity of the individual.

The official reaction of the External Affairs Ministry of the Government of India (http://meaindia.nic.in/mystart.php?id=190017768):

"We are disappointed and surprised at the allegations against Consul General (CG) of India in New York, Mr. Prabhu Dayal, by his former employee, which appear to be motivated and baseless."

Motivated and baseless? How do you know that, how could you possibly know that? Good thing they chucked in the word "appear" there, so as to let them off the hook. How dare they suggest that an Indian citizen, especially one in a vulnerable position, who has allegedly undergone very shabby treatment, is in it for the money, without having listened to her? How dare they side – automatically – with their protégé, one who has access to the power structure and (one assumes, given that he belongs to the maid-hiring class and is a top civil-servant) personal wealth?

The statement, dated from yesterday, the 22 Jun 2011, continues:

"Mr. Prabhu Dayal is a senior diplomat of impeccable personal and professional integrity. We are disappointed and deeply concerned that Indian diplomats and their family members, should be targetted (sic) in such a manner in a friendly country like USA."

What does the friendliness of the US have to do with this? The man is accused of playing with the human rights and dignity of a woman – how is he being targeted? One can be accused of a crime – this is how the justice system functions, even in the most liberal and free of countries. Even, come to think of it, in India.

It is, of course, possible that the victim in this case is lying and driven by lucre or a desire for personal revenge, but we must allow the voices of the underprivileged to be heard. We cannot accept that they be dismissed out-of-hand.